Bing Ads piloting in-market & custom audience targeting

Bing Ads is actively working on building out its audience targeting capabilities.

In-market and customer match audience targeting capabilities are coming to Bing Ads. Pilots for both features were announced Tuesday by Bing Ads General Manager Steve Sirich during a keynote conversation at SMX Advanced in Seattle.

In-market: The in-market audience pilot is running in the US only. In building in-market audience lists, Microsoft considers user purchase intent signals from Bing, MSN and other Microsoft properties. There are currently 14 in-market audiences, with more to come.

Advertisers can add in-market lists at the ad group level and apply bid adjustments. From the blog post:

Say you’re a travel site looking to target searchers who are ready to book a summer vacation. Bing Ads looks for people who are clicking on ads related to hotels and flights, searching for relevant vacation terms, or checking out hotel reviews, for example, and predicts whether these users are ready to buy.

That advertiser could then target the Travel & Tourism/Accommodations list.

Custom audiences: The custom audience pilot is global. The caveat is that advertisers must be using Adobe Audience Manager to participate in the pilot at this time. Bing Ads says it is working on integrations with other data management platforms (DMPs). Custom audience retargeting enables advertisers to target, bid and message to their own user lists and segments.

Advertisers working with a Bing Ads account team can contact them to learn about participating in these pilots.

More features in the works: Sirich readily acknowledged Bing Ads’ market position as a “fast follower” to Google AdWords, as parity with AdWords makes life easier for search marketers working in both platforms. Other new features currently in testing are dynamic search ads and similar audience targeting and automated bidding strategies for maximize conversions and target CPA, said Sirich.

During the keynote, Sirich also discussed Bing’s key underlying role in powering search intelligence throughout the Microsoft ecosystem with the company’s digital assistant, Cortana. Microsoft is often building features and products for iOS and Android before Windows, understanding the need for mobile-first capabilities, said Sirich. Bing powers search on Siri and Spotlight on iOS, for example. As for the LinkedIn acquisition, we’ll have to keep waiting for specifics, but Sirich said they are exploring ways to deliver targeting attribution, reach and engagement value for advertisers.